Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

The Awakening 3wholeness: according to him, she is able to join diverse parts in such away that “they co-operate to form a unity and are linked by the bondsof harmony” (40.1).Given this poem’s crucial role in establishing Longinus’ accountof the sublime, it is worth examining in some detail. I cite versionsof the poem as it appears in two eminent and recent translations ofLonginus, the first by D. A. Russell, the second by G. M. A. Grube. 3To me he seems a peer of the gods, the man who sitsfacing you and hears your sweet voiceAnd lovely laughter; it flutters my heart in my breast.When I see you only for a moment, I cannot speak;My tongue is broken, a subtle fire runs under my skin;my eyes cannot see, my ears hum; Cold sweat pours off me;shiveringgrips me all over; I am paler than grass;I seem near to dying; But all must be endured . . . (10.2)The translation in Grube’s edition renders the last two stanzas asfollows:Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and through me’Neath the flesh, impalpable fire runs tingling;Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaringWaves in my ears sounds;Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizesAll my limbs and paler than grass in autumn,Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter,Lost in the love trance (10.2)And here, in Russell’s translation, is Longinus’ commentary:Consider Sappho’s treatment of the feelings involved in themadness of being in love. She uses the attendant circumstancesand draws on real life at every point. And in what does sheshow her quality? In her skill in selecting the outstandingdetails and making a unity of them . . . Do you not admire theway she brings everything together—mind and body, hearing